MIAMI — Jamaica-born May Garcia decided to become a U.S. citizen after 23 years in this country and 104 years on this Earth.

“She had been watching the election coverage and said, ‘I’d love to vote,’” Garcia’s daughter Fay Rochester said.

So Garcia, born in Kingston in 1912, 50 years before Jamaica’s independence from Great Britain, started the naturalization process. That path ended Friday for Garcia and more than 100 others from 36 nations who took their oath of citizenship at a naturalization ceremony at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services building in Miami.

Afterward, she waved her arms back and forth in celebration as Pharrell’s “Happy” played in the Ceremony Room. Several other new U.S. citizens or their relatives stopped by Garcia’s chair to shake her hand.

Garcia, who lives in Lauderhill, Fla., with Rochester and son-in-law Denis Rochester, said she had no problem with studying for the citizenship exam or taking the exam itself. Activity keeps the mind sharp and as Garcia said, “I’m a busy person. I’m not a lazy one.”

She raised her four children in Jamaica by doing others’ laundry by hand. She came to the U.S. in 1993 at 81 to help take care of some of her grandchildren. Now, with her family spread all around the U.S., she spends her days at a senior center doing Zumba.